“I want to smash Kochie’s record.”

EXCLUSIVE:

“I want to smash Kochie’s record,” Michael Rowland jests.

Or is he being serious?

Having completed 13 years as host of News Breakfast, there’s ‘only’ another 9 to go to eclipse David Koch’s 21 years at Sunrise.

Rowland is clearly enjoying his role on ABC’s breakfast show alongside Lisa Millar. Maybe he is serious after all.

“I’m feeling probably the fittest I felt in a few years. You have peaks and troughs doing crazy hours, but I love the show. I’ve always told people ‘It’s the best job in broadcast TV.’ Case in point, on the one morning, last July, I got to interview the Prime Minister and Cate Blanchett within an hour or so of each other. What other show, what other outlet as a broadcast journalist offers you that chance? Along with a gazillion other stories on breaking news.

“I’m so lucky to be in this position. I’m loving it. Watch out Kochie I’m coming for your record.”

Ok point taken.

Australia’s ‘third alternative’ in the heated breakfast television game is now a well-entrenched choice for viewers who want their news straight, with a touch of relaxed informality in between interviews and information.

“We have … access to what is still Australia’s largest network of news reporters around the country”

Since launching quietly on the now defunct ABC2, the Melbourne-based show has amassed a devoted audience in what was a long-regarded two-horse race.

“Australian viewers are so lucky to have three fantastic breakfast shows,” says Rowland. “Sure there’s competition. We all want to get viewers but they, generally speaking, are a cut above what’s on offer overseas. That is something I am conscious of all the time and of the fact that there are alternative ways of getting news.

“But we offer, the value-added proposition of having correspondents overseas for those first overseas stories, mainly in Europe and the United States, overnight. We have a dedicated team of presenters who are specialists in their own field and access to what is still Australia’s largest network of news reporters around the country.”

Lisa Millar agrees, particularly on that last point.

“The regional reporting team I think is just so invaluable. We go to parts of Australia that the others just can’t, because they don’t have that capacity,” she says.

“I’m really surprised how many people stream us while they’re out walking. So they won’t be watching it, but they’ll have it on the phone and use us like a radio.”

“Or watching us on iview,” adds Rowland.

“We often were left off those junkets and now people are quite happy to come on our show”

“Every year, we’ve gotten more attractive to guests, both politicians and big entertainment names that’s been noticeable from my perspective over the last few years.

“Over the last 12 months, just off the top of my head, I’ve spoken face to face Margot Robbie, Emma Thompson, Matt Damon down the line, Chris Hemsworth… a lot of them are part of the junkets. But going back in the News Breakfast deep, dark history, we often were left off those junkets and now people are quite happy to come on our show because of the fabulous questions they’re asked but also the audience that they get to talk to!”

While ABC may not admit to being driven by ratings, over its two channels, ABC and simultaneously on ABC News, News Breakfast has often been a challenger to Today.

“On quite a few occasions” he points out. “And we’ve beaten Sunrise once. Not that they will acknowledge it, but we did. But Today and us have had this constant battle for several years now for the number two spot.”

Lisa Millar joined in 2019, having filled in for former host Virginia Trioli and returning from overseas posts.

“I’d been overseas for nine years in DC and London. So I was fresh back from London. My plan had been to just return to Queensland. I actually didn’t have a formal job yet. I was with the ABC, but I was just doing bibs and bobs, which is how I ended up coming down and filling in when Virginia had a break.”

“I have absolutely loved it more than I ever anticipated”

She loved the role so much she insists  Melbourne is now home.

“This is what I keep saying. I’d never lived here before. Everyone says, ‘You’ve gotta go home for Christmas,’ and I go, ‘Melbourne is home!’ I have absolutely loved it more than I ever anticipated I would. It’s fantastic. Michael said that I would when he gave me the pitch about coming down to do Brekkie with him.

“He said, ‘It’s a great show and I think we’ll work well together. It’s got a mix of everything.’ I had just come off some pretty full-on years as a correspondent covering all the terrorist attacks. The attraction that Michael put forward was that you still get to do that meaty stuff as it’s breaking in the morning but you get to spread your wings and have longer and fun conversations. That was the appeal.”

Central also to the team are Nate Byrne on Weather, Madeleine Morris on News and 2021 recruit Tony Armstrong on Sport.

Armstrong, who only had a year of television presenting with NITV and ABC’s Offsiders prior to joining, has proven a natural, winning him a legion of admirers and two Logie Awards in a short time.

“I’ve said this elsewhere,” Rowland offers. “In my view he is the best thing that has happened to News Breakfast in a long time. In terms of the freshness he’s provided, the different world view and just the sheer excitement he offers, in my view, as a presenter. You never know quite what Tony’s gonna say and that’s the fun part. It’s completely unscripted. What you see with Tony on screen is completely what you get off screen.”

“Nothing’s pre-planned as far as whether there’s some ‘funny’ that comes along. We just roll with it. It’s so lovely to have that to have that environment, basically,” Millar agrees.

“Tony is a superstar”

“Tony is a superstar,” adds Rowland. “He’s going to be an even bigger superstar in the years ahead. As I keep telling him, ‘Please remember when you’re really famous! I used to sit next to you on the Breakfast set all those years ago!'”

So do they fear him being poached by a rival network?

“Anybody can see that he’s hot property and hotter property on the back of winning the second Logie,” Rowland acknowledges. “He is doing a great job with us at the moment. He’s getting the opportunity to do some other projects at the ABC. So David (Anderson), and the rest of the team at the ABC have been fantastic in expanding his talent to other platforms on the ABC. Hopefully long may that continue!

“But we’re all realists.”

Of course being in Breakfast television puts both hosts in the crosshairs of social media, clickbait press articles and even tabloid headlines.

Millar has quit Twitter (as did the show itself) while a Rowland tweet in which he told viewers he was taking time off, drew headlines.

“Breakfast TV’s angry rant!”

“It came on the back of the day after Stan Grant (departed Q+A), who was having a rough time. It still appalls me what he went through. Various media outlets, conflated the two and said I was walking off in a huff, in support of Stan having his say,” Rowland recalls.

“We made it onto the cover of Woman’s Day …or New Idea? Nobody’s safe!” Millar quips.

“Breakfast TV’s angry rant! Storms off the set!” Rowland adds.

In the changing landscape of media, Rowland remains pragmatic about scrutiny and the demands of Live television.

“You’d say stuff 10 years ago, and what I thought was pretty outlandish and outrageous stuff would just sink into the ether. Whereas I’m conscious now anything I say could end up in a headline which would reflect badly on me and on the ABC.

“It’s breakfast TV. It’s three hours of Live TV and what you say, can’t be taken back.

“Sure, every morning there are sentences I could construct better or sentiments and stories I can express better, but that’s part and parcel with doing 3 hours of live, no safety net Breakfast TV. That’s what I like about it.”

“People see it in different ways.”

Both are also passionate about striving for balance as a public broadcaster.

“Our charter and our Code of Conduct as ABC journalists is to be balanced, provide fairly both sides of the story, see comment on both sides of the story. Do not show any political favouritism. But people view that in different ways,” Rowland explains.

Millar agrees, “I mean, we’re old school. We were young journos together. That is how we were taught and nothing’s changed about that for us because we’re sitting on breakfast television, which is a more free-flowing chat. As Michael just said, people see it in different ways. Because they’re coming to it with their own biases. So they’ll feel that you’re not being neutral, because you’re not saying what they want to hear. Whereas I don’t feel like it’s difficult to be neutral, because it’s how we’ve always operated.”

“If you get off the back of a robust political interview with anybody on either side of politics… if you’re being called equally, a rabid lefty, or a Tory stooge at the same time, you know you’ve done a pretty good job,” Rowland adds.

‘Thank you. You got me through COVID”

Connecting with their audience, whether through social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, is also a big priority. Rowland reflects on the show’s particular bonds forged with viewers through COVID lockdowns.

“If there’s one achievement I’ll take with me to my grave during the show it’s the number of people who still come up to me and say -in Melbourne but also around the country when I visit other areas- ‘Thank you. You got me through COVID. You’ve got me through those lockdowns. You and the Breakfast team,” he notes.

“On top of all the prominent people I’ve spoken to, all the big overseas assignments I’ve been on, that is going to be my Breakfast epitaph quite happily.”

News Breakfast screens 6-9am weekdays on ABC / ABC News.